Hatred
by rooty-boots
Summary: Edmund the Just ponders the boy Edmund, and how much he has changed. A little oneshot I wrote probably about four years ago, based around the 'Narnia-world' that Francienyc and I have built together. References to OCs.


**This story refers to mainly to Lucien, who is, in our world, Lucy's son with Corin of Archenland. He is a very intelligent, but sickly little boy. The story also refers to 'Dashiel', who is Susan's son in Narnia, and the eldest of the four 'Silver Age' Monarchs who come after the Pevensies; also Juliette, who is the daughter of Lord Peridan, who ends up marrying Dashiel, and taking the fourth throne. (Though she is not referenced, the other Silver Age monarch in our world is Susannah, daughter of Peter the Magnificent.)**

I told him today, how it used to be. I don't think he believed me – at least, not at first. And why would he? That was long before he was born, and even though he is the cleverest of children, one cannot expect a boy of his tender years to know how very much a person can change. How worlds can be shaken and hearts broken, or even broken open in the space of one conversation. One cannot ask a child his age to comprehend a world before he came to be, any more than one would ask an old man to think on a world after he has gone from it. Until today, he looked upon me and he saw forever; an unchanging entity who has always been and will always be so. Today he began to learn different, and once begun the lesson can never be halted.

When I was his age, I expect I felt the same way - that things would never change, much though I hoped they would. We four – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – were trapped in our positions, and the world seemed immovable. I didn't know back then, or even begin to suspect, how it felt to be Peter, how it felt to be Susan, how it felt to be Lucy. I was Edmund, through and through, and Edmund was a bad boy, full of hatred.

He hated Lucy. He detested her smile and the skip in her walk. He hated her little grasping hands and her keening voice. He hated her tears and her pigtails, and the doll under her arm. He hated Susan. He loathed the sheen on her skin and the smoothness of her hair. He hated her motherly caresses and the babying coax in her voice. He hated her clean fingernails and her starched dresses and her smell of soap and talcum. Most of all, he hated Peter. He hated everything about Peter, for Peter was everything that Edmund was not, and everything he so longed to be.

Peter was golden and Peter was good – he was everybody's favourite. He was strong and brave and fast, and Edmund could never catch up. So he would follow behind Peter, cursing him, hating every hair on that golden head. He never stopped to think about the worries that head contained. He never realised the burdens that weighed heavy on those broad shoulders. He just hated, and hated, and hated, until his heart grew cold and his mind sharp and malicious as a flint.

It was a sharp lesson that Edmund had to learn. His heart was broken open with force and learning to love again was not without hurt. It is terrifying how easy it is to become hardened, how hard it is to soften again. The statues in the Witch's castle looked so peaceful in their frozen state, yet when Aslan brought them back to life they would cry out with the terrible pain of it. So it was with me, but I was fortunate enough to have three hands to hold.

Poor Lucien. The play never ends; it has started all over again; we are all cast in our roles and he is the Edmund to Dashiel's Peter. He will never run as fast, or hit as hard or climb as high. Today he tried and fell. He is not hurt, but he is wounded, and these are not wounds that his mother can heal; the more she tries, the more she will hurt him, for though she rides with us, she cannot of course understand what it is to be a boy, to become a man. Likewise, there is so much I will never understand about women, about Lucy, about Susan, about Juliette... but this... this is something I know, better than anyone. Only I can help him. Perhaps that's why I love him so, because for Lucien, I am first. I am chosen. I am someone I never thought I could be.

We humans, for all we are held up as the saviours of this land, are small, mercurial creatures. Our hearts and minds can be changed, won or lost in the blink of an eye, and once changed, there is nothing to say that they cannot change back again just as suddenly. Look at Corin. Look at me. The minds of the beasts, by contrast, move as slowly as glaciers, but once they are resolved, there is no going back. It must be so peaceful, to be so. To know something beyond all doubt. To believe even when all evidence points to the contrary. To quiet the chatter of a million thoughts down into one lone voice, the voice of Aslan, and to follow that voice to whatever end. Sometimes I wish that life had been so simple for us. Sometimes I wonder if this is how it is for Lucy, but I know it is not so for her son. He is like me, and like me, he must learn everything the hard way. He will never be told. He will never be satisfied. He may never know peace.

But there is hope for him, as there was for me. His mother gave it to him as a birthday gift, as it was given to me as my Christmas present. For I _have _changed, have I not? I need somebody to tell me for certain, because sometimes I cannot be sure. When they ask me about myself, I evade their questions, and when they ask me about that boy, I pretend I do not remember him. The truth is, he has never strayed far from me. He holds onto my hand and goes with me everywhere I go. But Lucien, my sister's child, holds onto my other hand, and I walk the line between them.


End file.
